cause of this decline is obscure, but its effects soon showed themselves
in easier conditions of life, especially for the poor. Such periods of
under-saturation, which some new countries are still enjoying, are
necessarily short. Population flows in as naturally as water finds its
level.

It was not till the accession of George III that the increase in our
numbers became rapid. No one until then would have thought of singling
out the Englishman as the embodiment of the good apprentice. Meteren, in
the sixteenth century, found our countrymen 'as lazy as Spaniards'; most
foreigners were struck by our fondness for solid food and strong drink.
The industrial revolution came upon us suddenly; it changed the whole
face of the country and the apparent character of the people. In the far
future our descendants may look back upon the period in which we are
living as a strange episode which disturbed the natural habits of our
race. The first impetus was given by the plunder of Bengal, which, after
the victories of Clive, flowed into the country in a broad stream for
about thirty years. This ill-gotten wealth played the same part in
stimulating English industries as the 'five milliards,' extorted from
France, did for Germany after 1870. The half-century which followed was
marked by a series of inventions, which made England the workshop of the
world. But the basis of our industrial supremacy was, and is, our coal.
Those who are in the habit of comparing the progressiveness of the
North-Western European with the stagnation or decadence of the Latin
races, forget the fact, which is obvious when it has once been pointed
out, that the progressive nations are those which happen to have
valuable coal fields. Countries which have no coal are obliged to
import it paying the freight, or to smelt their iron with charcoal This
process makes excellent steel--the superiority of Swedish razors is due
to wood-smelting--but it is so wasteful of wood that the Mediterranean